Belong, Believe, Become
Our goal is to create a community of belonging for young men between 18-25 years old from Manenberg who are caught in unhealthy life rhythms, such as gangs and drug addiction. They live in our home for leadership development, Cru62, where we assist and empower them to break free from this through the power of Jesus and to be fully dependent on him. We want to see the very same young men who have been tearing down this community become healthy, productive and pouring out the love they have received into Manenberg.
How do we do it?
In Cru62 we have established a full-time schedule to try and help the young men rebuild their body, mind and spirit. This lifestyle of learning, hard-work and fun is centred around a healthy family structure, the lack of one growing up, being one of the biggest challenges our young men are facing in our community.
Our programme
The day begins with devotions, introducing the young men to the love of God. During the week they also have time-slots in our onsite prayer room where they can deepen their relationship with Jesus and they are plugged into our weekly church family rhythms. Each son of Cru62 is assigned a mentor for the duration of his 18 months who disciples and walks alongside him intensively in his healing journey.
We revisit stories from their lives using the 12 Step programme with the aim of dealing with the pain of what was done to them and what they have done to others - something that was never encouraged growing up. The young men also attend addictions sessions at The Matrix, a government-run programme, and once a week they attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, connecting with others who have walked the road of recovery before them.
To help build skills and a value of work, the guys from the house spend a day a week at Maak ‘n Plank where they are taught the basics of carpentry and begin learning how to take old wood, and recreate it into something beautiful.
We try to help the guys engage with conflict in a restorative manner where there is space created to share and deal with day to day issues that come up living at Cru62. We have a once a week board meeting, where the young men encourage each other by identifying blind spots as well as the assets in each other, they also set weekly goals for themselves in this time.
They learn more about nature or what is happening around the world through ‘Documentary Night’ as well as Saturday outings exploring Cape Town. Regular exercise through soccer, boxing, surfing, running, and hiking helps rebuild their physical bodies as well as assisting with the healing and retraining of the brain from damage done through drug use. We want to see these guys begin to value not only their emotional and spiritual health, but their physical and mental health.
All of this is held within a family culture of eating around the dinner table and having intentional conversations, with onsite house-parents and ‘older brothers’ who supervise the home and lend a shoulder to cry on or a smile to cheer.
Our Team
What do we need?
As more of the young men make it through our programme, we are looking for opportunities to plug them into job training and employment. Do you have connections or a small business that would be willing to help us?
Contact us at cru62@treeoflife.org.za.
We also need volunteers with specific skills like carpentry, vocational skills or tutors in reading and writing. We have a need for good news bibles, prayer, food, clothing and monthly givers.